Jenna Dewan & Callie Hernandez in ‘Mixtape’: Netflix Picks Up Fox Musical Drama Pilot To Series
Jenna Dewan & Callie Hernandez has been tapped for lead roles alongside Madeline Stowe & Raúl Castillo in Netflix musical drama pilot Mixtape from former Smash showrunner Josh Safran and Annapurna Television.
Mixtape is a romantic musical drama that looks at the love stories connecting a diverse, disparate group of people in contemporary Los Angeles through the music that lives inside their hearts and minds.
Kristen Bell and Jenna Dewan-Tatum
The Internet network has given a 10-episode order to the musical drama.
The project hails from Quantico creator Josh Safran; Annapurna Pictures; 20th Century Fox TV, which produced the original pilot; and its cable/streaming division Fox 21 TV Studios.
The majority of the cast of the Fox pilot, which was directed by Jesse Peretz, are set to continue. That includes Hernandez, Jahmil French, Dewan, Campbell Scott, Stowe, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Megan Ferguson and Evan Whitten.
The male lead, played in the Fox pilot by Raul Castillo, will be recast, and possibly the child role of his young son. As a result, there will be some reshoots on the pilot, which would be helmed by Peretz subject to availability.
Written by former Smash showrunner Safran, Mixtape is a romantic musical drama that looks at a disparate group of interconnected people in contemporary Los Angeles through the lens of the music that defines who they are. Mixtape captures the different stages of love, exploring if time can heal a broken heart and if love can withstand life’s tragedies.
Dewan will play Joanna, a young professional with everything always under control. She’s the most rational person she knows. And yet she’s a little guarded, as if always prepared for the worst.
Dewan serves and host and mentor on NBC’s competition reality series World of Dance, which is returning for a second season this summer. She previously starred on Lifetime’s Witches of East End and NBC’s The Playboy Club.
Dewan is repped by UTA and Management 360.
Callie Hernandez – Graves (season 1 episode 6)
Hernandez will play Nellie, whose job in admissions at an arts college and relationship with an up-and-coming musician have derailed her own dreams of becoming an artist.
Hernandez most recently was a series regular on Graves for the comedy’s two-season run on Epix and next will appear in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Too Old to Die Young drama series for Amazon. Her feature credits include Under the Silver Lake, Alien: Covenant and La La Land.
Hernandez is repped by CAA, Management 360 and attorney Erik Hyman.
Madeline Stowe will play Margot, an actress who carefully controls how she presents herself to the world, but is secretly exhausted by having to do it.
The marks Stowe’s return to television since she starred as Victoria Grayson on all four seasons of Revenge. She’s also directing and co-wrote upcoming Western feature Unbound Captive.
Stowe is repped by Gersh and Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
Megan Ferguson also booked a series regular role. Ferguson will play Gigi, Nellie’s (Hernandez) best friend.
Ferguson will recur on the upcoming final season of Hulu’s Casual and continues to recur on the fourth season of Grace & Frankie. She recently guest-starred on Fox’s 9-1-1.
Ferguson is repped by UTA and Principato Young.
Safran executive produces with Annapurna’s Megan Ellison and Sue Naegle as well as Ali Krug.
While Mixtape did not make the cut to series at Fox, the pilot was an internal favorite and had support among network executives. As we previously reported, it was taken out by the studio to streamers immediately after Fox Broadcasting Co. had made its pickup decisions last month. The talks progressed at Netflix and, with a deal in its final stages, the actors were picked up this past weekend just hours before their options were set to expire.
This is the third broadcast pilot to get a series order by Netflix after missing the cut at its original network. Last year, the streaming platform picked up drama Insatiable (originally at the CW) and comedy All About the Washingtons starring Rev Run (originally at ABC).
It’s been a busy month or so at Netflix, which also picked up canceled Fox drama series Lucifer and continues negotiations for Designated Survivor.
Mixtape was the first broadcast pilot for Annapurna and the second series at Netflix for the company, which also has the Coen brothers anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
At Netflix, Fox 21 TV studios recently produced the Veena Sud series Seven Seconds. This marks the first 20th TV broadcast project — pilot or series — to find a second life on a SVOD platform.